diff --git a/README b/README
index 2f78d1973..31a76778b 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -159,6 +159,10 @@ In order to assist in the development of ejabberd, and particularly the
 execution of the test suite, a Vagrant environment is available at
 https://github.com/processone/ejabberd-vagrant-dev.
 
+To start ejabberd in development mode from the repository directory, you can
+type a command like:
+
+    EJABBERD_CONFIG_PATH=ejabberd.yml erl -pa ebin -pa deps/*/ebin -pa test -s ejabberd
 
 Links
 -----